


Borrowed, With Interest

by keepyourpantsongohan



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Developing Relationships, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Implied Feelings, KakaYama Week 2019, M/M, Post-Naruto Time Skip | Naruto Shippuden, Romance, Soulmate Power Swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 06:29:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18823015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keepyourpantsongohan/pseuds/keepyourpantsongohan
Summary: Taking a deep breath, Kakashi folds his hands into the serpent seal he’s seen Tenzō perform hundreds of times, and experimentally, lets his chakra flow.Kakashi is so spellbound by the shifting plants that it barely phases him when a figure lands at his hospital window. It is only when he registers who it is that he turns sharply. Tenzō. Yamato.Yamato stares at him, one eye black, and the other vivid red. “We need to talk,” he says, and collapses.(Kakayama Week 2019 Day 1: Soulmates)





	Borrowed, With Interest

The first time Kakashi meets Yamato, he greets him by doubling over and vomiting just to the left of his sandals.   
  
Well, not quite the first time. Kakashi has spent a number of hours in the other man’s company. More than he can count, really. Though it’s been some years since then, his memory of it remains strong, sharingan or no. But that had been with Tenzō, ANBU of Konohagakure. Not Yamato, Captain of Team Kakashi.  
  
Not much of this occurs to Kakashi as Jiraiya is thumping his back, Tsunade is examining him, and Yamato is looking on with every sign of concern.  
  
“What have you been doing now?” Tsunade complains, jabbing him between his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me you’ve been using the sharingan while in a hospital bed. I won’t be held responsible if you can’t move for three more weeks.”   
  
“I didn’t,” Kakashi says tiredly, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “I don’t know what it was. The room suddenly took a turn.”  
  
Yamato, as they are calling him, gives him a small smile as he hands him a glass of water. “I didn’t realize my presence would be so upsetting to you,” he says, with a raised brow.  
  
Kakashi replies with a weak chuckle. “Maybe it was sympathy pains. My team is... energetic,” he says, sharing a knowing glance with Jiraiya.  
  
Yamato’s stance shifts from teasing to purposeful. “I’m sure I’ll learn to cope.”   
  
They don’t speak much more directly, as Yamato is briefed on the mission. Though Kakashi’s eyes do drift to Yamato’s at the mention of Orochimaru, the only hint of disturbance in his face is the tightening around his eyes. He doesn’t have to wait to ask. His substitute lingers by his bedside after both Tsunade and Jiraiya have left.   
  
“You haven’t gotten any better at regulating your chakra usage on missions, I see,” Yamato reproaches, sitting down on the edge of Kakashi’s bed.   
  
“You should be nice to people when you visit them in the hospital, Tenzō,” Kakashi counters, finally letting himself lay back down.   
  
“You should be in the hospital less, senpai,” is Yamato’s familiar retort.   
  
Kakashi would shrug if he were upright, but instead lets his head shift half an inch and decides it conveys the same meaning. “Is that why you have that look on your face? You’re concerned for my well-being?”   
  
“I have a headache,” Yamato says, rubbing at his temples.  
  
“Already? That doesn’t bode well.”   
  
“Not from the briefing.” Yamato’s face scrunches up. His left eye winces, as if he's trying to clear it of some irritant. “My eyes have been aching since I entered the room. Maybe it’s the antiseptic in the air.”   
  
With a sympathetic wrinkle of his nose, Kakashi says, “Or the vomit. Sorry about that, by the way.”   
  
Laughing, Yamato tells him, “It’s not the first time I’ve seen you get sick. If I thought it was because of me, I really would be offended.” After a moment, he asks, “But you’re alright, then?”   
  
“Yes,” Kakashi responds truthfully. Despite the initial shakiness, his body feels quite a bit stronger now than it had just this morning. It's a confusing juxtaposition, but he is too thankful to question it much. “With enough luck, I’ll be up and walking around by the time you get back.”   
  
“I’ll hold you to that,” Yamato tells him.

* * *

A week later, Kakashi dreams of Orochimaru. First, he sees the man standing over Sasuke, holding a kunai against his throat. Then it is Tenzō, or Yamato, or any of the other names Kakashi has called him over the years, being pushed underwater by pale hands. Then it’s Kakashi himself being carried by a tide, hands struggling to find purchase in the water that surrounds him.   
  
His hands finally brush something. _A vine,_ he thinks, grasping it tightly. And he wakes.  
  
For a moment, he supposes he must still be dreaming, because there could be no other reason why his hospital room is covered in wooden tendrils, snaking around his arms and across his bed, onto the floor. There is only one mokuton user in Konoha, and he isn’t in the village right now.   
  
Kakashi tries to shake his hand free of the vines and realizes, with some alarm, that they are attached to his body. When his heartbeat hastens, the vines move and grow, which only serves to increase its pace.   
  
He shuts his eye. If this is his own jutsu, it is something he can control. If it is a genjutsu of someone else’s making, it is something he can break. Taking a deep breath, Kakashi folds his hands into the serpent seal he’s seen Tenzō perform hundreds of times, and experimentally, lets his chakra flow.  
  
The response is immediate. The vines sprout buds, and with not much prodding on Kakashi’s part, begin to bloom. The scent of jasmine fills the air. One flower creeps its way up the bed to brush against Kakashi’s neck. It’d be breathtaking if it weren’t so terrifying.   
  
Kakashi is so spellbound by the shifting plants that it barely phases him when a figure lands at his hospital window. It is only when he registers who it is that he turns sharply. Tenzō. Yamato.  
  
Yamato stares at him, one eye black, and the other vivid red. “We need to talk,” he says, and collapses. 

* * *

Kakashi really tries not to laugh. He fails, but he would submit that it’s important that he tries. It’s Yamato’s fault, really, for the awfully amusing expression on his face.  
  
“Not a word,” Yamato grumbles, adjusting the straps of his eye-patch.   
  
“You know, if you gave up on the happuri, you could just cover it the way I cover mine.” Kakashi taps his forehead protector, where Obito’s eye, now black, is still hidden. Tsunade had advised them not to give too much away while the details of their conditions were still unknown.   
  
Yamato folds his arms stubbornly. “No.”   
  
Sighing, Kakashi nudges him. “Fine. If you won’t let me help you, then you help me. The Kyūbi’s chakra needs to be suppressed if we’re going to train Naruto as intensely as I’ve planned. I was going to ask you, but since that’s out of the question...”   
  
“I’ll still attend his training,” Yamato interjects firmly. “The jutsu to suppress bijū chakra isn’t easy. You’ll need guidance, Kakashi.”   
  
Kakashi begins to offer a reply that he’s sure will annoy his companion, but he lets his amusement be quelled by Yamato’s warning look. “Alright, Mokuton no Tenzō,” he says, extending his hands, palms up. “Teach me.”   
  
Gently, Yamato’s hands wrap around Kakashi’s, and guide him through a series of signs. “We’ll start off simple. If you try to use up too much chakra right away, you’ll just end up exhausting yourself again.”   
  
_These are the hand seals he uses when he’s growing trees_ , Kakashi notes. He’s never tried to copy any of them for obvious reasons, but they’re burned into his memory from both battle and respite.  
  
“Use as much chakra as you would for a shadow clone,” Yamato instructs.   
  
Kakashi looks at him askance. “That much?”   
  
“Mokuton users are able to replenish their chakra quickly. In theory, that should apply to you, too.”   
  
“In theory,” Kakashi repeats, snorting.   
  
Kakashi moves to repeat the signs that he’s been shown, and Yamato’s hands hover near his, as if to intervene if necessary. When Kakashi’s hands clasp in the last motion, he feels heat in the pit of his stomach, and then the earth cracks, the beginnings of a small tree emerging beside them. While Kakashi pours chakra into it, the tree grows taller and wider, until Yamato’s fingers touch his wrist.   
  
“That’s enough for this one,” Yamato says hoarsely.   
  
Kakashi lets out a breathless laugh. “That was... different. I’ve never felt a jutsu like that before.”   
  
“I’ve never seen anyone else use mokuton before,” Yamato replies, looking thoroughly discomposed. His hand hasn’t left Kakashi’s wrist.   
  
_Right._ As strange as it is for him, it must be much stranger for his friend. “Are you okay?”   
  
Yamato’s face splits into an exhilarated smile, and his fingers slide over Kakashi’s. “Yes,” he says, in a tone which leaves no room for doubt.   
  
“Good,” says Kakashi, finding it difficult to look away. If he were a more foolish man, he might think the tree branches were growing longer without his doing. To break the tension, he pulls on Yamato’s eye-patch, letting it snap back into place.   
  
“Hey!”   
  
Kakashi squeezes Yamato’s fingers with his other hand, and then lets go. “Let’s keep going.” 

* * *

Training is a new set of challenges. Though Naruto’s knowledge of jutsu is woefully incomplete enough that he doesn’t know that wood release isn’t a normal chakra nature (whether Kakashi should blame himself or Jiraiya for that, he’s not sure) Naruto is astute enough to recognize that bijū suppression is not a skill Kakashi has ever displayed, but it is one that Yamato had been using on their mission together.   
  
“There was a bit of a mix-up,” Yamato is explaining. “So Kakashi-san will be performing the Mokuton while I supervise both of you.”   
  
Naruto frowns. “But you said it was a kekkei genkai.” 

“Yes,” Yamato says patiently.

“So are you from the same clan?”  
  
Yamato sighs. “No. You have to remember, I wasn’t born with this ability either. It happened through Orochimaru’s experiments. Think of this change like another experiment.”   
  
Naruto nods seriously, and Kakashi can see Yamato is relieved. But Kakashi knows Naruto well enough to anticipate the ‘hm’ and words that follow. “I still don’t get it.”   
  
Deciding it’s time to intervene, Kakashi stands up and says, “How I got these powers isn’t important. What _is_ important is that I can use them to help you train.” At the last word, Naruto’s face lights up, and Kakashi takes that as encouragement. “The stronger you get, the closer you can get to the Akatsuki, and to Sasuke. You understand that, right?”   
  
Naruto claps his hands together. “Then what are we waiting for, y’know?” he says, grinning. “Let’s start, Kakashi-sensei!”   
  
Kakashi isn’t as at ease with mokuton as he would like. Plants seem to take to chakra eagerly, so he has a hard time gauging how to grow intentionally and carefully as Yamato does. And in the case of chakra suppression, he finds it hard to maintain a jutsu like this for hours on end, when his most powerful techniques are built for strength rather than stamina. Even with his chakra being replenished, it feels terribly unnatural. He’s not sure if having Yamato standing behind him is helping or breaking his concentration.   
  
“Steady,” Yamato murmurs, with a hand on Kakashi’s shoulder. “Stop looking at his progress and think about your own jutsu.”   
  
“It would be easier if this _were_ my jutsu,” Kakashi reminds him, a little ruefully.   
  
Pressing his knee against Kakashi’s back so he has to correct his posture, Yamato says, “It’s yours for now. And you have to learn to use it, just as I’ll have to learn to use the sharingan.”   
  
Kakashi stiffens at that. “Right,” he says quietly.   
  
By some miracle, they manage not to incur any major disaster in the course of the day. Once, Kyūbi’s chakra surges, and Kakashi calls out a hasty, “Tenzō,” while his companion fires out rapid commands. It is an exhausting jutsu, and Kakashi almost feels guilty for asking his friend to do this when he can barely manage to do it himself.  
  
When night has fallen, and Naruto has settled himself some distance away so he can sneak off to train too early for his own sake, Kakashi turns and says, “I don’t think I’ve given you enough credit for your skill with mokuton.”   
  
Shifting onto his side in his sleeping bag, Yamato replies, “And I don’t think I’ve given you enough credit for how draining it is to have a sharingan taking your chakra every hour of the day. You bear it well.”   
  
Kakashi looks away, directing his gaze at the night sky. “I’ve had some time to get used to it.”  
  
Yamato pauses. “Does it upset you?” he asks, after a prolonged beat of silence. “That I seem to have the sharingan which was given to you as a keepsake?”   
  
“I don’t know. It’s a strange feeling. But you didn’t exactly choose to have it,” Kakashi reasons, catching his eye again. “And if there’s anyone I trust to know what this kind of gift means, it’s you.”   
  
Yamato has discarded both eye-patch and happuri for the night, so when he opens his other eye, Kakashi gets a clear view of the red iris and its three tomoe.   
  
Kakashi reaches out, and then hesitates, letting his hand fall back down onto the grass between them.  
  
Yamato tugs on Kakashi’s wrist, leading the other man’s fingers to his cheek, just beneath the sharingan. “I haven’t seen a sharingan in a few years,” Kakashi says lightly, despite the loud thumping in his chest.   
  
“Me either,” Yamato retorts glibly.   
  
Kakashi laughs, his fingertips grazing Yamato’s cheek as he does. “Is that a reprimand, or you telling me you miss me?”   
  
“Both,” says Yamato with an earnest smile.   
  
Kakashi finally pulls away, and says, “Well, I’ll be around.”   
  
Yamato closes both of his eyes. “Good.” 

* * *

“Is it always like this?” Kakashi asks, during another break in training when Naruto is taking a well-earned nap. Kakashi’s combs his fingers through the grass, pensive. “Can you always feel the life coursing through your surroundings?”

“In Konoha, more than most,” Yamato explains, leaning against the tree at his back. “The plants aren’t quite so loud anywhere else. I suspect that’s Hashirama-sama’s influence.”

Kakashi takes this in, nodding. He glances at Naruto, checking that he is still asleep, and then admits, “It’s overwhelming.”

Yamato looks at him with a partiality that ought to make him wary, but doesn’t. “You spend your days teaching chakra control to a jinchūriki, and this is what overwhelms you?”

He shakes his head. “It’s not the same. This is more than hyper-awareness. It’s like being in a crowd at all times. I don’t know how to tune it out.” Kakashi is used to mitigating his sensory input, but this isn’t as simple as closing his eyes. Whether or not he is trying to infuse chakra, the flora seem to be making themselves known to him. Closing his eyes only makes them clearer. Yamato is right. The plants are loud. 

“I find it helps to narrow your focus,” Yamato advises kindly. He plucks a single blue flower from the ground, and holds it in front of Kakashi. “It’s similar to dōjutsu. You receive a lot of information, but only so much of it is important for you to take in.” 

Absorbing this, Kakashi swipes the plant from his companion, rolling its stem across the pad of his thumb. “Have you tried to use the sharingan?”

“I had a look around the field this morning.” Glancing at Kakashi archly, Yamato adds, “Are you aware that your facial anatomy is very symmetrical?”

Kakashi grins. “Are you making a pass at me in front of my student, Yamato?”

“He’s asleep,” Yamato points out. 

“Even worse,” Kakashi says, twirling the flower at him like it’s a teacher’s measuring stick. 

Yamato tries stoutly to knock Kakashi onto the grass as he smirks. 

* * *

Akatsuki makes no allowances for their ever-changing lives, and so Kakashi finds himself readying to leave the village with little preparation, jutsu or otherwise. As he heads out of his door, he isn’t surprised to see Yamato waiting at his entryway with a perturbed look. Just like the plants, Yamato's chakra makes itself heard. He could sense the man standing patiently near while he packed his weapons pouch. 

“You’re going to let those kids do something stupid.”   
  
Kakashi debates asking, ‘Which kids?’ But no matter who, an answer other than ‘yes’ would be a lie. “They’re going to do something stupid anyway. I’m going to offer them adult supervision.”   
  
Yamato steps towards him. He hasn’t quite learned to compensate for the issues in his depth perception yet, so he stumbles into Kakashi as he does. “Are you sure you’re doing the right thing? Asuma was your friend, I get that. But going as you are... it’s dangerous.”

“When Sasuke left the village, I didn’t chase after him. He didn’t come back.” Kakashi says sombrely. His hands, outstretched to catch Yamato from his stagger, rest on his friend’s elbows. “I won’t let the same thing happen to Team 10.”

“It isn’t the same,” Yamato replies. 

“Isn’t it?” Kakashi lets out a deep breath. “Listen, I understand why you’re concerned. But this is something I have to do. If not for my sake, then for Asuma’s.”

The words seem to strike Yamato. Kakashi is not the only one worried for the scattered rookie teams. It is already clear how much Team 7 has softened him in such a short time. “They do need help. Though I'm not sure you're in the best position to offer it," he adds, perhaps purely on principle. 

“If I thought I could buy more time, I would. But we have to improvise,” Kakashi says, knowing how much Yamato hates the word. "I'll be fine. I’ve survived this long, haven’t I?”

The tension in Yamato’s chest drops, but it seems to signify resignation rather than relief. “With your own jutsu. This kind of mission requires back-up.”

“We’re pretty good at sharing,” Kakashi reassures him. “And you’ve got Naruto to look after while I’m gone. I’m sure you’ll be along, if I need it.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Yamato gives him a wry glance. “Doesn’t stop me wishing I could be there to help.”

The hands slide down from Yamato’s elbows so that he can feel the pulse of mokuton in Kakashi’s palm. “You will be,” he says, meaning it.

A static shock passes between them as Yamato presses his fingers against Kakashi's. It is an unfamiliar kind of comfort that settles over him quietly before his journey, but a welcome one.  _Good,_ he thinks foolishly, lingering on the doorstep for a moment too long. 


End file.
